Lavender Sky: The Mint Tails
by watchingpaintdry
Summary: Fire burns, fire devours, and fire gives new life to that which it kills. So does the pheonix rise from the ashes. But will she be able to rise again, or will she be crushed by the weight of death? And will she save the Z fighters before it's too late?
1. Birth by Fire: Quake

X-X-X-X-X

Fire.

She had always loved fire.

She would sit for hours with the others, when they made camp in the woods, and just stare into the flames, watching them devour and burn.

Now, however, she was watching as the same fire she had come to know and love devoured her home, her life, everything that had ever mattered to her.

With a wrenching sob, she scrambled over the rubble to wrench open one of the special blast doors of Capsule Corps main building.

Shoving the burning piece of metal aside, she slid through the rubble, trying her best to walk delicately over the remnants of the collapsed, broken building.

Finally, she reached Laboratory #2, where the time machine was held.

Forcing the doors open, she froze, a scream rising in the back of her throat, smoke clogging her eyes, the smell of charred flesh making her nose sting.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced herself to move past the bodies, towards the shining silver hull that would take her out of hell.

Scrambling into the cockpit, pale green fingers darted across the keypad, punching in coordinates even as the machine began to hum to life.

She looked out on her broken world, engulfed in fire, and forced herself to focus on the blackened bodies strewn across the floor.

Tears streaming from her eyes, she murmured a soft 'I'm sorry' before the time machine shuddered, lurched, and vanished from sight.

X-X-X-X-X

Bulma was in her Lab, tinkering with a new invention she had been stewing over for several weeks, when the room began to tremble.

Confused, she looked up at the computer screen, but there were no earthquake warnings flashing across the screen.

However, the trembling had become much more forceful, and, when she tried to stand, Bulma was barely able to keep her balance.

"What on earth…?"

The next second, and a blinding flash of bright white light illuminated the room, and Bulma was knocked clean off her feet, landing with a dull thud against the wall, helpless against the burning heat she suddenly felt against her face.

When the light finally began to fade, Bulma blinked desperately, trying to dispel the black spots clouding her vision.

When she could see again, she gasped in shock.

Imbedded in the wall of her underground lab was the glowing orange hull of her time machine.

Gaping at it, Bulma blinked, then scrambled to her feet, moving towards the smoking hull.

However, as she got closer, she could feel the heat still radiating off of the burning metal, and so looked around for something to extinguish the fire. Her eyes landing on the fire alarm on the wall, she walked over and pulled the handle.

Immediately, the room was filled with a loud blaring, red flashing lights, and a deluge of ice-cold water.

Bulma could hear the distinct hiss of the red hot metal cooling, and, upon closer inspection, she was able to find the lever that opened the pod.

Sweeping her blue hair out of her face, Bulma leaned over the edge, trying to see.

What she found made her stomach turn.

X-X-X-X-X

"What the hell's going on!?" yelled Vegeta, as the rumbling grew louder.

The entire gravity room shook with the force of, well, whatever it was.

Then, suddenly, everything went still.

Confused, the Z fighters exited the gravity room, heading over to the Capsule Corp main building.

There, they spotted Dr. Briefs coming out of his laboratory, looking around in confusion.

"Hey, Doc. What was that?" asked Goku, also looking around.

Bulma's dad shrugged, and nearly jumped out of his pants when the fire alarm started to sound.

Glancing over his shoulder, Dr. Briefs looked at his computer screen, and his face drained of color.

"BULMA!" he cried, and took off down the hall, the confused Z fighters right behind him.

The alarm had come from Laboratory #2.

X-X-X-X-X

"Bulma!" Goku yelled, pounding on the metal door to her lab. When he tried to open it, they discovered that it was stuck.

"BULMA!"

The muffled call from the other side of the door was barely audible, but it had Vegeta worked up enough to the point where he physically tore the re-enforced titanium door clean off it's hinges.

"Bulma!" called Gohan, scrambling through the cold downpour of water, trying to see through his sopping bangs.

"Over here!" called a familiar voice, and the Z fighters turned to see Bulma leaning over a time machine, her arms inside the cockpit, trying to dislodge the pilot.

"Help me!" she called, trying to lift the still figure trapped inside the machine.

Gohan, however, was frozen to the spot.

"Gohan?" asked Goku, noticing the boy's still visage.

Gohan was shaking uncontrollably, fear racing through him.

One of the bloodstained arms of the ships occupant had flopped out over Bulma's shoulder.

The arm was green.

X-X-X-X-X

Gohan was the first to scramble over the debris to reach Bulma's side, almost too terrified to speak.

"Gohan, it's not what you think." Said Bulma suddenly. Looking over the boys shoulder, she motioned for Goku.

"Help me lift her." She said.

"Her?" whispered Gohan, confused.

Also looking rather perplexed, Goku stepped foreward.

When he laid eyes on the ships occupant, he paled, but reached down anyway, wrapping the figure gently in the white cloth surrounding it, and lifting the thin body out of the wreckage.

"Come on," said Bulma, and they all hurried out of the wet Lab, and down another hall to one of the building's main emergency units.

"Put her on the table." Bulma commanded, throwing on a white coat.

"Bulma, what's going on?" asked her father somewhat angrily, still confused. His daughter shook her head, then went to stand beside Goku, who had laid out the body on an operating table.

There was a collective breathe from the room at large.

Lying on the table was a namekian, that much they were sure of, but the features and shape of the individual where unlike any other namek they had ever seen.

A soft, rounded face was offset with a delicate nose, full lips, and large, gracefully pointed ears. Waves of lavender hair cascaded around the figure, held in check partially by the bandanna tied around the head.

The figure was clothed in simple, dark purple fighting gi pants, plain black shoes, and a cutoff shirt to match the pants.

The gentle curves of the body left little to the imagination.

They were looking at a female.

X-X-X-X-X


	2. Awakening: Part 1

X-X-X-X-X

The girl stirred, eyes opening slowly, blinking up at a clean white ceiling.

She twitched, first one hand, then the other, then her feet and legs, checking to make sure they worked. Finally, she sat up.

Looking around, she realized she was in one of the labs at Capsule Corp, but how…

"Ah, good, you're awake." Said a familiar voice, and her head snapped around, staring at the blue haired woman striding towards her.

"How are you feeling?" asked Bulma.

Receiving no reply, Bulma shrugged, going into professional medic mode.

"I need to perform a routine checkup, to make sure you're healing correctly." She said. Before she had even finished, the girl was pulling off her cape and bandana, looking expectantly towards Bulma.

Apparently, she had done this before.

"Right," mused Bulma.

"Can you take your shirt off, please?"

The girl complied, lifting the piece of purple clothing up over her head, revealing the breast bindings underneath, letting it fall by her side on the bed, blinking dazedly off into space.

With a frown, Bulma approached her, stethoscope in hand.

"Breathe in," she commanded. The girl complied.

"Breathe out," she did what she was told, now blinking at a place somewhere over Bulma's shoulder.

Straightening, Bulma jotted down some things on a clipboard, then motioned for the girl to lie back down.

She did so, and Bulma placed her hands on the girl's stomach, feeling as she inhaled and exhaled.

"Good, you can sit up." She said.

The girl did as told, and Bulma noticed something on her left side.

"Uh, can you turn around?" she asked.

The girl blinked, paused for a moment, then stood slowly, turning her back to Bulma almost reluctantly.

Bulma inhaled sharply, a hand flying up to cover her mouth in shock and horror.

Crisscrossing the girl's back was a multitude of spider-web like scars, spreading from her waist up to her shoulders. They overlapped in certain places, some on top of others.

But, they seemed old, the wounds long healed to form slightly paler scar tissue.

With a breath, Bulma reached out to touch one, trailing a finger down the girl's back, feeling her tense at the contact.

"Uh, o-okay, you can sit back down." She finally managed, fumbling with the clipboard.

The girl, again, complied.

"Now, I need to ask you some questions." Said Bulma distractedly, still running over the scars in her mind.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The girl blinked, knitted her fingers together on her lap, and twitched an ear.

"Zeva." Came the reply.

"How old are you?" asked Bulma, not really expecting a reply. This was a namekian, after all.

"22." Came the answer.

Bulma started slightly.

That young?

"Uh, where are you from?" the girl raised an eyebrow at this, and Bulma suspected that it was a stupid question, considering. She was about to write 'Namek' down on the clipboard when Zeva answered.

"Earth."

"You were born here?"

"Yes."

"When."

"Two years ago."

Bulma froze, staring at the clipboard, then raised her gaze to Zeva, who was still observing her with her unnerving, lazy lavender eyes, which, Bulma realized, matched her hair.

"What?"

"I was born two years ago, on this planet, in an underground laboratory belonging to a one Dr. Gero." Came the reply.

X-X-X-X-X

"An android?" asked Goku, astonished.

The Z fighters, along with Bulma and Chichi, where all sitting in Bulma's living room, staring at the blue haired scientist as she, in turn, gazed at the clipboard in her hands.

"No. She's not an android. She's solid flesh, nothing inorganic at all. Just…I don't understand how this could be possible. I never saw anything like this in any of Dr. Gero's video logs."

Goku, who was sitting across from his oldest friend, shrugged.

"It could be a new technique."

"That's true." Mused Bulma, eyes glazed over as she thought.

"Did she tell you anything about the process of her birth?" asked Piccolo suddenly, from across the room.

Bulma looked up.

The tall Namekjin seemed to have taken an interest in this new development, and was watching her with sharp, interested eyes.

Bulma shook her head.

"She never knew _how_ she was born, only that she _was_."

"And nothing of the one who birthed her?" he asked.

Bulma blinked.

"Pardon?"

Piccolo sighed.

"When a namek is born, the parent often transfers memories, thoughts, images, personality traits and the like to their offspring. In other words, the parent molds the child the way they see fit. If she can tell us anything of the one who gave birth to her, we may be able to solve this."

X-X-X-X-X

"Nothing." Said Zeva.

Bulma, who was sitting across from the green skinned female, felt her heart drop.

"Nothing?"

"No, nothing." Zeva assured her, shaking her head a little.

She had replaced her bandana and shirt, and had wrapped her cloak back around her shoulders.

She was currently sitting, cross-legged and by herself, in the middle of a couch in Bulma's living room, cradling a cup of water in her hands.

"Well, there goes that theory." Bulma muttered.

"Do you know precisely where you where born?" she asked, sounding hopeful.

Zeva sighed in something akin to exasperation, before shaking her head.

"All of you are so concerned with _where_ I came from, that you haven't asked, or even thought about, the most important question." She said, sounding slightly annoyed.

Bulma and the other Z fighters blinked at her.

"And what's that?" asked Goku.

Zeva smirked slightly.

"_Why_ I am here."

X-X-X-X-X


End file.
